Catering In Scotland
In the world of contract catering, finding a company with the right blend of experience, resources and friendly service is like finding the perfect life-partner - the overall chances are slim but if it should happen, you know it's one less thing to worry about. Alex Buchanan meets the team from Wilson Storey Halliday and discovers a company with more than their fair share of personality...
Keith Wilson, Alastair Storey and John Shovlin are three very different men with one very similar mission. Alastair and Keith, together with a third partner; Linda Halliday, collectively form the driving force behind one of Britain's most remarkable business success stories, having recently collected the Sage Business Award 2003 for the Fastest-Growing Business.
With exclusive contracts for Hutchison 3G and Tui (the amalgamation of holiday giants Thomson and Lunn Poly), WSH have grown around 20% annually, and last year, with the award of some specific group business, they witnessed a 35% growth in sales.
John joined Wilson Storey Halliday in 2002 and has adopted the same approach as the three Directors. Having worked for years with Alastair and Keith at Sutcliffe, the move to join them was almost inevitable and it has proved worthwhile both to WSH as a company and to their clients.
With offices in London, Wokingham and now in Glasgow, the last three years have seen a period of expansion that all at Wilson Storey Halliday are proud of. The reasons for this steady growth are simple - the company have a unique approach to clients that makes them so much more approachable than the larger companies that traditionally dominate the UK's contract catering market:
"We are all about people and relationships," says Alastair, keen to demonstrate the importance of face-to-face communication and personalised service. "We re-invest everything back into the company so we can continue to offer and improve our level of service. We're not so small that our ambitions and efficacy are limited, but at the same time we're not so big as to lose sight of our clients once we have got them on board. Our biggest objective, and this goes hand in hand with satisfaction, is client retention."
Allied to that is their commitment to training and development within their own staff structure. John Campbell, the Michelin-starred Chef from the Vineyard Restaurant at Stockcross, works with the Wilson Storey Halliday team of chefs to coach and develop them to ensure that the best quality food and service standards are served in all their clients' restaurants.
When I visited one of Wilson Storey Halliday's most recent projects north of the Border, I was pleasantly surprised at the efficiency and capacity of their set-up; a dining area and self-serve facility in a major financial institution. It offers functionality and form in an attractive package, allowing the customers, in this case the staff, to relax and enjoy their mealtimes with nothing more to bother about than their choice of food. Keith is emphatic about why they won the contract; "The client was keen to promote a high quality approach to the catering here and that is reflected in the style of restaurant. It's stylish and attractive but it serves its purpose well.
"If you want to keep your staff motivated and happy, then a proper catering outfit is as important as regular rewards and incentives," continues Keith.
It is these qualities that enable WSH to deal with the bigger clients like Cisco Systems and Oracle, while at the same time preserving the quality of service one would normally only receive from much smaller, more insular organisations.
Having secured the Cisco contract for the whole of Britain, Cumbernauld's facility is their biggest in Scotland and it shows how the team can spread their expertise around different areas of the country. John Shovlin is as much a part of that team as the other three: "I'm well placed in Glasgow to be able to coordinate our client base form here but the fact that the guys [Keith and Alastair] are Scottish themselves means that together we understand the different needs of this particular market."
Alastair agrees: "We are as committed to developing the Scottish market as we are elsewhere in the country and if that means visiting each prospective site to evaluate its needs and meet the client face to face, then all the better."
Article by Alex Buchanan
Editor of Catering In Scotland
Catering In Scotland Website